


hope guides me

by somethingsomething



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drift Side Effects, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8990287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingsomething/pseuds/somethingsomething
Summary: There is a long list of side effects associated with being a Jaeger pilot.  The best of these is a family.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, geckoholic!

Kaori wakes up six months, five weeks, and three days after the Breach closes and can’t see.

Her eyes are open, and it’s daylight outside; the sun is warm on her bare feet. She sighs, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

 

Kaori wakes up a year from when the U.N. commissioned the first Jaeger and can’t see. She sits bolt upright, feeling desperately for something, anything.

Duc wakes up with soft, confused noises. “Babe–”

“I can’t–”

He catches her hands in his. “Okay,” he says, “I got you, I got you.”

 

Caitlin flies in from Seattle. She studies Kaori’s brain scans for a long time, then Duc’s, then both of theirs together.

“It looks like it was just an isolated incident,” she says. She even smiles. She looks tired. Only the rookies ever look happy and well rested these days.

Duc looks at Kaori and grins.

Duc and the rookies, then, Kaori thinks, and squeezes his hand.

 

By mid-May, Kaori is back in the med wing. Tamsin is in the bed next to hers.

“They’re saying they found a girl,” Tamsin says. Her hand is covering her eyes. The headaches are worse today.

Kaori can’t swallow. “They’re sure?”

“Stacks saw her. He’s trying to find out more.”

Something weak and glowing unwinds behind Kaori’s heart. If their beds were closer, she’d reach over and clutch Tamsin’s hand.

A leftover piece from her last Drift with Duc, maybe.

 

Mako Mori is small, sad, and incredibly fierce. Kaori likes her already.

Mako stands at the railing of one of the catwalks in the Jaeger Bay, Tamsin crouched at her side, pointing things out and explaining in a mix of Japanese and English. Mako watches Tamsin as though there will be an exam.

“Which one is your favorite?” Kaori asks Mako in Japanese.

Mako considers the question and the Jaeger Bay. Their catwalk faces the length of Scramble Alley; Jaegers peek out of their bays like nosy old neighbors watching the town amble about their day.

“Besides Tango,” Tamsin says.

Mako looks up at them. She looks heartbroken.

Kaori and Tamsin laugh, Tamsin’s hand curling around Mako’s shoulder.

Kaori crouches down and points to the bay all the way at the end of Scramble Alley. “She’s my favorite,” she says. “Her name is Tacit Ronin.”

“Is she yours?” Mako asks.

“Yeah,” Kaori says, “mine and Duc’s.”

“Her,” Mako says, her voice firm. “She’s my favorite. She has swords.”

 

By 2021, Caitlin is reluctant to deploy Kaori.

“We just don’t know,” she says.

Kaori’s mouth thins. “The blindness doesn’t affect my piloting, and the longest it’s ever lasted is twelve hours. I’ve never had a problem with it in the Drift.”

“We don’t know if it’s a sign of something more serious,” Caitlin says. “The last thing we want is another Tokyo.” She stays quiet for a moment as she looks between Duc and Kaori. “I don’t want to lose more friends because of something I could’ve prevented,” she says.

Kaori sighs and slumps back in her seat.

“But if it’s us or them,” Duc says.

Kaori and Caitlin watch him for a long time.

“Okay,” Caitlin says. “Okay.” She signs them off for deployment.

 

They run into Tamsin on their way out of the hospital. Hawaii shines brightly outside the windows.

“You look well,” Kaori says as she hugs Tamsin.

Tamsin grins, wide and cocky. “Cancer and chemo have nothing on a Kaiju,” she says.

Duc laughs. “Fucking right,” he says as he fist bumps Tamsin before she wraps him up in his own hug.

Tamsin drags them to the hospital cafeteria because, “Their Jell-O is abnormally good? I’ve had a lot of hospital Jell-O, and let me tell you, these people really know their stuff.”

Mako is sitting at a sunny table in a far corner when they get to the cafeteria. Her books are spread out in front of her in haphazard piles. She grins when she sees them.

“Hello, Kaori, Duc,” she says, bowing low. “It is very nice to see you again.”

“So formal,” Duc says, grinning. “Come here, you ankle-biter.”

Mako grins and hugs him. She laughs when Duc lifts her feet off the ground.

Mako’s hug from Kaori is, in a word, quieter.

“How’s the studying?” Kaori asks.

Mako shrugs one-shouldered. “They’re moving rapidly through the material, but it’s nothing Tendo hasn’t taught me before.”

Tamsin laughs. “Look at that cheek,” she says, clearly delighted. “I’m so happy to have rubbed off on you.”

Mako smiles as though she’s never heard better praise.

 

Eventually – 

“It’s a degeneration of your optic nerve,” Caitlin says. She’s long retired from piloting. Her hands shake more days than not.

“Can I pilot?” Kaori asks.

Caitlin sighs.

“Yes,” Duc says. He smiles. “Who else is gonna make the good calls out there?”

Kaori can’t help but smile back.

“Us or them,” she says and holds his hand.

“That’s my 01,” he says, and grins like the sun.

 

Kaori is having a good vision day when Mako takes her on a tour of the Mark III Restoration Project. Ronin and Duc are long buried; Kaori’s heart still aches like a fresh wound. Duc’s half-formed thoughts have stopped popping up in the corners of her mind, at least.

Still –

“Oh, Mako,” Kaori says, when she sees Danger for the first time. Her swords hang from her wrists, long with wicked points. They gleam under the Shatterdome lights.

“The swords are for my family,” Mako says. She’s quiet, standing by the railing with her hands folded in front of her.

Kaori can’t speak for a long time. Emotion stops her voice and blurs her vision.

“We are so, so proud of you,” she says, after a long time.

Mako and Kaori hug each other for long enough that they can’t tell whose tears are whose.

 

Kaori can’t see Tamsin’s funeral, but she hears all of it. The sun is cruelly bright on her skin.

It turns out that listening to Stacker Pentecost choke back tears during his eulogy hurts just as much whether Kaori can see it or not.

Mako has little to say when she finds Kaori after the service. That’s fine; Kaori doubts she could speak even if she had words to say.

 

Six months, five weeks, and four days after the Breach closes, Kaori walks into the Hong Kong Shatterdome. She can feel Bahama looking around, eager to explore, but she never wavers from Kaori’s side. Bahama is a fantastic dog.

“Kaori!”

Kaori turns towards Mako’s voice. Mako’s hand brushes her elbow, and Kaori opens her arms for Mako.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t be there for the ceremony,” Kaori murmurs. “He was always so proud of you. We all were. Are.”

Kaori’s shoulder feels a little damp when Mako finally takes a step back. “ _Arigatou gozaimasu_ ,” she says, her voice thick.

“Come,” she says, “I want you to meet Raleigh.” She links her arm with Kaori’s and walks with her through the Shatterdome. “He liked the swords.”

The first time Duc saw Tacit Ronin shining under the Shatterdome lights, back when everyone had hope, he’d looked at Kaori and said, “You know, I think this is gonna work just fine.”

Kaori hadn’t known then if it was a Drift thing or a Duc thing, but she’d believed him despite her usual practicality.

“I think you might be right,” she’d said all those years ago, not in love with him yet, but leaning towards him like a flower to the sun all the same.

“How did Danger run?” Kaori asks, a lifetime from that day. “Was the release mechanism for the swords still giving you trouble?”

Mako discusses Danger’s mechanics, things she was pleasantly surprised about, things she wished she’d had more time to perfect. She mentions plans for the future, too. Mako doesn’t sound happy, or well, but –

Hopeful. She sounds hopeful.

“You know,” Kaori says, leaning in like she has a secret, “I think this is going to work.”

She can’t see Mako’s smile, but Mako’s hand tightens on her own, and it’s more than good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Canonically, both Duc and Kaori go down with Tacit Ronin, but I'd forgotten that until about halfway through writing this ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Title comes from _A Knight's Tale_.


End file.
